[rjvin]

I don't know how true that is. There are a lot of things in expensive fonts that provide intrinsic quality: more character sets (greek and cryllic for example), openType features like conditional ligatures, more kerning pairs, extra weights, small caps, hinting, etc.

[tptacek]

You're getting those character sets in a particular typeface. But there's no intrinsic reason for you to set type in FF Meta.